The business secretary hit back at accusations the Lib Dems had allowed their coalition partners to push through right-wing policies.

Delivering his speech during the party’s annual conference in Brighton, he said: ‘We are getting more women into top business positions, on boards.

And we have seen off the head bangers who want a hire and fire culture and seem to find sacking people an aphrodisiac.’

Mr Cable also repeated his call for a mansion tax as ‘a first step to a proper taxation of wealth and land’.

‘It horrifies the Tory backwoodsmen but it is popular and right,’ he said.

‘The super-rich can’t move their chateaux to Monaco or Switzerland so let’s get on with it and tax them here.’

He also predicted the next general election would be hung – and admitted he was talking to Labour as a result. He couldn’t resist a dig at the apparent rivalry between top Tories David Cameron and Boris Johnson – even squeezing in a joke at chief whip Andrew Mitchell’s expense.

‘I’ve been told that jokes about social class are not good for the unity of the coalition. But as a mere pleb I couldn’t resist it,’ he said.